


Heaving Through Corrupted Lungs

by Ocyrtus



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 04:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocyrtus/pseuds/Ocyrtus
Summary: The first petals came at the tail-end of Crema. For Timmy, Crema was an unassailable heaven, one that he only now could dream about, and a heaven that fled far too quickly. The disease was slow, a development too agonizing, this he knew, and so Timmy never thought it could develop over a meager six weeks.





	Heaving Through Corrupted Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger warning: Brief suicidal ideation at the end, and overall depressing mood. MAJOR character death (if you don't bother to read the tags). Please heed with caution! Thank you.** Prompt is about the Hanahaki Disease.

The first petals came at the tail-end of Crema. For Timmy, Crema was an unassailable heaven, one that he only now could dream about, and a heaven that fled far too quickly. The disease was slow, a development too agonizing, this he knew, and so Timmy never thought it could develop over a meager six weeks.

 

They were in the throes of filming what was Bergamo in the movie, frolicking around the town at ungodly hours of night, delving into early morning. Luca had ushered Armie into the hotel room they had rented, Timmy trailing after his heels to film Oliver’s solo scene of contemplation. 

 

“Having fun there?” Armie asked with a languid smile, stripping himself of his garments. It was a familiar routine Timmy couldn’t resist looking away from, slivers of skin showing in the moonlight, clothes haphazardly thrown on the floor. Timmy was cozied in the thin hotel sheets, bare as the day he was born, watching the crew putter around the set. Armie flopped ungracefully on the bed beside him and turned to face Timmy, eyes closed and content. 

 

It was in these moments that made Timmy painfully aware of how far deep in he was with the man beside him. Moments where Armie was unapologetically open with his emotions, open with his company, that gave Timmy flickers of hope that there might be something more underneath his confident bravado. Something more that would make Armie gather Timmy in his arms and kiss him senselessly, unscripted and passionate. 

 

Because Timmy was anything if not greedy for more. 

 

But he knew it was a lost cause. Elizabeth had visited a few days ago, and seeing the couple beaming at each other was enough to clutch the hope Timmy was harboring and shrivel it down into his esophagus. Couldn’t help the choking feeling he got in his throat when he heard the tell-tale noises of Armie as he was pleasured from the room above Timmy’s, noises that had taken him more than a month to coax out of Armie, and even that, was guise under the script.  Couldn’t even bring himself to hate the woman Armie so clearly loved, as she coddled and ruffled his hair like she was a part of their family. 

 

Timmy fluttered his eyes closed as Luca signaled filming to start. This scene was wordless, the beauty of it captured only by Oliver’s forlorn expressions. It wasn’t hard for Timmy to put himself in Elio’s shoes. Young, beguiling lover, about to be betrayed by the only man he had ever loved. But in sleep he could pretend that their time was infinite. In sleep, he was saved from pain that Armie caused him, pain that Oliver caused him, saved from the world selfish enough to take away what he loved, selfish enough to damn him. 

 

They were living on borrowed time. But, oh God, let it never end. 

 

They got the shots in only a few takes and the hustle of the crew filled Timmy’s mind with white noise. He excused himself to the bathroom, ignoring Armie’s soft calls to him, ignoring the tears that dripped down his face as he fled. 

 

The linoleum of the bathroom floor was cold as Timmy kneeled, sobbing into his hands. He couldn’t help but think that it was all so  _ unfair _ , that when Armie looked back at Crema, he would only remember good, a heaven made for him, but waking up everyday was a personal brand of poison from Hell for Timmy. 

 

His throat seized suddenly and Timmy was forced to take gulping breaths, clutching at his chest. He should have seen the panic attack coming, but he hadn’t had one in months, not since Crema, and it became increasingly hard to level his breaths. Timmy began hacking up coughs over the toilet, a roiling feeling in his stomach that told him he was about to chuck up everything he had eaten that day, but what came out was not vomit, only

 

red,

 

soft,

 

small,

 

Petals.

 

More rose petals trickled out as Timmy coughed violently. They tickled his throat, choking him as the petals started coming without abandon. By the time his chest was heaving and his coughing fit had died off, he had enough rose petals to fill his hand. The quantity wasn’t much, but it had been painful enough that Timmy felt he had coughed up a whole bouquet. His throat was sore and bruised, eyes heavy from the tears, and his head was splitting. 

 

Timmy had heard of the flower disease, one brought on by failing love that caused the blooming of flowers in a body. But it was only talked about in whispers, a disease that had no medical cure, only a surgery that was risky at best and one that permanently damaged the person beyond repair. When he was at Laguardia, there were rumours that a junior had developed the disease, and became so terminally ill that she had to be taken out of school. After a few months of her absence, her parents had announced to the school that they were moving out of the country permanently, although most speculated that she had died on the table during surgery. 

 

The petals seemed to mock him then, telling him that he had brought this onto himself and he would end up like that girl, unmoving on a slab of metal, bleeding out, if the thorns didn’t stop his heart first. 

 

Timmy flushed them all down the toilet and cowered in the corner, burying his face in his hands, cries sounding inhumane in his pain. 

 

He clutched at his heart that had betrayed him so.

 

Timmy was a dead man walking.

 

 

 

It was almost too easy to pretend like everything was fine. Between takes, Armie touched him carelessly; a hand on his shoulder, a ruffling of hair and, Timmy’s favorite, fleeting embraces that he could sometimes get away with. He would complain about the chilly breeze that graced Bergamo in May and Armie would waste no time in wrapping his arms around Timmy’s waist or in pulling his body into the warmth of his own.

 

It was only in these moments that Timmy could pretend that they were lovers, not strangers placed into a set in which they could only be intimate under the ever-seeing eyes of the cameras. Pretending that their touches were secretive in nature so as to promise a ravishing between the sheets  _ later.  _ Pretending that Armie’s glances were coy and inviting because he  _ wanted  _ Timmy, as much as Timmy wanted to live inside his skin, and even then, they would not be pressed together enough. 

 

The sleepless nights were inescapable. 

 

No matter how much Timmy danced or smoked or drank during that day, his toilet worship that occurred without fail during quiet evenings, left him restless and bereft of relief. The petals stung, but his heart ached even more so, knowing that  _ he  _ had brought this upon himself. The flower disease - love-illness, they called it - lived in the psyche more than the body. It corrodes one’s spirit and from there it spreads to the mind, then to the limbs, and finally to the heart, where its death can be the only, ultimate cure for the love-illness. 

 

Timmy had noticed it too. The throbbing at the back of his head grew persistent every day, and his legs seemed to give out more often than not. It had only been a week since the petals had come, but Timmy had already started to endure bouts of vertigo, where lights flashed behind his eyes and he was forced to sit down in order to regain himself. Armie was still blessedly oblivious, never having glimpsed Timmy in one of his bouts. 

 

Timmy was determined to keep it that way. 

 

When he wasn’t shoving fingers down his throat to rid himself of rose petals,  _ that _ had become a routine now, Timmy stared at the empty space in his bed at night, willing his fatigued mind to conjure a mirage of the man he desired, if only to give him some form of release. He would spread his fingers across the sheets, feeling strong, sturdy skin, caressing the hem of the pillowcase, and tracing blonde eyelashes that framed hauntingly blue eyes. Timmy knew what Armie’s lips felt like on his, replayed the moment like a film perpetually stuck on a loop, hot breath mingling with his, feeling the need to inhale his scent, so as to keep some part of Armie inside of him. 

 

Grueling nights led to Timmy’s rapidly filling cock, nipples taut in the midst of his fantasies, though his tugging at his foreskin would be half-hearted at best. There was no sense of satisfaction or pride in this activity and Timmy’s mind would catch up to him all too quickly, his chest constricting and petals flushed down the toilet before he could even get close to release. 

 

And he would wake up on the bathroom floor in the morning, staring at a husk of who he used to be. 

 

No shine or glow that Armie insisted lived inside of Timmy, only an exhaustion that traveled under his eyes. 

 

Timmy pleaded for the disease to take him quickly, to not prolong his suffering any longer. 

 

It took and took and took everything he had loved. It was high-time for it to take his body too.

 

The last thing he thought of was that he hoped Armie would not be the one to find him. 

 

He would never be able to forgive himself.

 

Timmy left behind only roses.

 

His unmoving hands clutched at them,

 

blood-red. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I love this pairing with all my heart, but I apparently cannot write happy stories about them. Thank you for reading. Not edited, so please let me know if there are any mistakes. Thoughts?


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